


The Lost Vermeer Job

by ChancellorGriffin



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Smut, Grumpy Eliot Spencer, Hotel Sex, Let's Go Steal a Rarepair
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-07-12 12:33:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15995306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChancellorGriffin/pseuds/ChancellorGriffin
Summary: In 1990, two men posing as police officers robbed the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, making off with over $500 million in stolen art. The most valuable of the lost paintings, at nearly $200 million, was "The Concert", one of only thirty-four surviving works by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer.  The Gardner robbery was the largest recorded private property theft in history, and though authorities suspect the work of Boston mobsters at play, and have partially traced the path through which the art was fenced, to date, none of it has been recovered or even located, and all potential suspects are believed deceased.(Nobody covers his tracks like Jimmy Ford.)When the missing painting turns up in Paris, it proves an impossible temptation for Sophie Devereaux, both to get her hands on the Vermeer that got away . . . and, maybe, if she's being very honest with herself, because she suspects a certain taciturn Oklahoma cowboy-turned-hitter might turn up there to settle his old score with the corrupt billionaire who originally bankrolled the theft.What? She just misses having a team. That's all.There can't possibly be any more to it than that.





	The Lost Vermeer Job

**Author's Note:**

> Set between episodes #113 (“The Second David Job”) and #201 (“The Beantown Bailout Job”).
> 
> Loosely inspired by "Last Seen," the new Boston Globe podcast about the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum heist which every fan of "Leverage" should check out because it will feed so many of your headcanons.

All of Sophie Devereaux’s best stories began in Paris, and this one was no exception.

Well, perhaps that was only partially true. This story, after all, had had a number of beginnings. And a few endings, too. So much of it unfolded in flashes. Fits and starts. Here, Amsterdam. There, Beijing. Most recently, Los Angeles. It had ended, then begun, then ended again, right there inside that airplane hangar.  In a way, perhaps this story, as she understood it, was not even a story, but a chapter, a brief interlude in a much larger narrative.  She couldn't entirely be sure yet. She only knew that it had been Paris where the switch flipped inside her the first time, and here she was in Paris again . . . but for the first time in ten years, she knew Nate Ford would not follow her.

She was not quite sure whether to be glad or sorry.

She hadn't gone to Paris _first,_ of course.  Far too obvious. No, the plane had taken her from Los Angeles to Moscow, where she’d switched identities and left the remains of Sophie Devereaux in the trash compactor of a Soviet-era hotel and boarded a plane as Elizabeth Miller for Istanbul.  And then Dubrovnik, as Nicoletta Maggio. And then Buenos Aires, as Cecile Varens. And then Dubai, as Else Scholler. By the time the dust settled, she was in Tokyo as Lorelei Crane, antiquities appraiser for Lloyd’s of London. Her bank account was flush with cash, her safe house was a newly-built luxury condominium on the seventy-fifth floor of a tower with a view of the sea, and her safety was permanently secured.  Hardison had done his job flawlessly, as always.

So that was that, then.  It should have been over.

She’d thought it was over the minute the plane left the ground. It had been tempting, for awhile, to think of Leverage Consulting & Associates as her new life - a _real_ life, or very nearly - but all of that went away with Maggie.  The moment she'd entered the picture - warm and grounded and honest and naturally blonde and so many other things that Sophie was not - it became clear that this was the end.  Finish the Blackpoole job, then walk away, she'd decided immediately.  The thing was so damned obvious. But she wasn't angry at Maggie, she was grateful.  Maggie had been a reality check.  Dangerous, to think of getting too comfortable with this version of herself. With having a crew.

With Nate.

All the other women inside Sophie Devereaux - all the aliases that made up the sum total of her sense of self - worked alone.  She had always worked alone. It wasn’t a coincidence that in a lifetime of grifting and theft, her most intimate relationship had been with the insurance agent hunting her down; she never stood still long enough for anyone else to catch her.  Sophie, of course, was not her real name, but it was the name she’d used the longest, and it had begun to almost feel like an actual identity. Not the whole truth, of course, but closer to it than any of the other people she’d been.

And they knew it.  All four of them.  Parker, Hardison, Eliot, Nate.  They might not know her real name, they might not know the details of her past, but they knew _Sophie._  How she worked, how she thought, what made her tick, what made her laugh. They _knew_ her.

Perhaps that was why she’d been so certain it was time to go, once Maggie arrived to reset things to their proper perspective.  A little longer, and they’d all begin to know too much. To know things that they weren’t supposed to know yet.  

It had been easier than she ever thought it would be to get used to them.  She’d liked the thrill of it, watching Nate Ford switch sides to lead them on that ridiculous, magnificent Robin Hood crusade, and she’d liked the way it felt to help make people’s lives better.  She’d begun to like the person she was becoming.

Until she met Maggie, and saw the way Maggie and Nate looked at each other, and realized the imaginary life she’d been building - the two of them at the center of this odd little family - only existed in her own imagination, not his.  She’d been a fantasy to him, she realized; the chase was breathless and romantic, and being thrown together again had stirred up all manner of feelings, but Maggie was real, Maggie was his anchor, Maggie carried half the grief that weighed Nate's body down, which meant only Maggie really understood it.

Maggie was a good person.  Maggie was an _honest_ person.  And Maggie was what Nate Ford really wanted. 

So Sophie swallowed her tears and got on the plane without looking back.

She’d been surprised to realize, once she was settled in her Tokyo safe house, that the old thrill of building a new life and identity from scratch had lost some of its appeal.  She'd been surprised to discover how much she missed them.

And so perhaps it was predictable that, upon learning that Augustus Abernathy - Texas oil tycoon, illicit arms dealer, and quiet financier of the largest art theft in history - was en route to Paris to have a mysterious, unnamed painting appraised, Sophie had been on a plane the next day.  Nothing less than a $200 missing Vermeer would have been enough to coax the man out of Texas.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery had been a disgrace, in Sophie's opinion. Amateurs. They'd sliced the works out of the frames so haphazardly that some had been damaged.  And they were clearly in over their heads; they'd stolen a few priceless works, too, but walked right past others to pick up a random scattering of far less valuable sketches. They'd even unscrewed an eagle-shaped brass finial from the top of a Napoleonic flag. Worthless on its own, but they'd probably thought it was gold. Bunglers, both of them, unworthy of the breathless outpouring of public fascination they'd received.  Not even an _attempt_ at a grift!  A pair of police uniforms, some handcuffs, and a blunt announcement that the place was being robbed.  The whole thing had been so . . . _inartistic._   Sophie had read the news in the London _Times_ with nothing but disdain.  Yet they'd never been caught, which meant somebody somewhere with infinite money and more brains was pulling strings to protect them.

And Augustus Abernathy fit the bill.

Sophie was under no illusions that the painting he was transporting was merely a minor Diego Rivera sketch, as he'd claimed.  No, he had the Vermeer.  He must have.  He'd been the brains behind the operation, and had simply lain in wait until enough time had passed that he could begin fencing the works.  The "appraisal" was a cover for a black market sale, she was sure; if she were Abernathy, she'd do the same.  He'd been pulling such maneuvers for years, but he had the entire Texas state house and half the Republicans in Congress tucked in his back pocket; he was untouchable.

Almost.

Sophie Devereaux had always been unable to resist a Vermeer, but she also knew one person who would be unable to resist the lure of Abernathy.  Where she took deep, soul-restoring satisfaction in stealing a painting someone else had stolen badly when she knew she could do it better, he took the same joy in finishing a job left undone.

Nate was with Maggie. Parker was off the grid. Hardison was untraceable. But if Augustus Abernathy was in Paris, Eliot Spencer would be there too.

Sophie’s relationship with Eliot had been complicated from the beginning.  Parker and Hardison, after all, were much younger than she was, so they’d fallen rather effortlessly into something resembling a family dynamic: Nate and Sophie the parents, hacker and thief the wayward teenage children.

But Eliot was something else entirely.

Eliot lacked Parker’s effervescence, or Hardison’s natural warmth, or the history she shared with Nathan.  Their rapport was more cautiously built, more conditional, and he’d taken it harder than any of the others when everything with the Second David had gone wrong.  Of all of the crew, Eliot was the one she’d always felt was the most likely to walk away with no warning. He carried darker, heavier burdens than any of the rest of them, even Nate.  He was the one with shadows on his soul. He'd been the slowest to warm to her, his faith in her the hardest-won, and therefore the most precious to her, because she’d earned it by being (almost) completely herself.

Eliot respected her from the moment they met, acknowledging a fellow expert in her field.  He’d found Hardison irritating, Parker insane, and Ford a short-tempered drunk. But Sophie Devereaux was a professional from the crown of her glossy dark head to the red soles of her Louboutin pumps, and Eliot knew it.  She was steady and strong. He was an expert in plenty of things - armaments, geopolitics, terrain - but she was an expert in human emotions. She understood each of them better than anyone else ever had. She could get through to Nate when he wouldn’t listen to anybody else, she could explain the basics of human interaction to Parker so she’d actually understand it, and she kept Hardison centered with his feet on the ground.  To Eliot, she paid the compliment of never interfering in his job.

From the moment they met, they’d acknowledged each other as equals, and they’d made each other better.  It was too raw, just yet, to let herself think about Nate, yearn for Nate, feel _anything_ for Nate. But the others, she could permit herself to miss.  Hardison's warm smile.  Parker's giddy laugh. That godawful painting. The feeling of having an _office._

A _home._

It wouldn’t be the same, of course.  It would never really be the same again.  

But still - it would be good to see Eliot again.

* * *

 Eliot, for his part, was in Wyoming, and he wasn't thinking about Sophie at all.

Eight years ago, he'd been hired to take out the famously reclusive Abernathy, and failed.  Nothing to do with the art theft, his client didn't give a damn about that, but because Abernathy Oil had made a pretty little fortune funneling arms to half a dozen Eastern European terrorist cells, making about as many enemies as you'd expect in that line of work. The job had gone sideways, Eliot's cover had been blown, and he'd ended up in a Serbian prison for two months before bribing - and then punching - his way free.

Augustus Abernathy was exactly the kind of corrupt, untouchable monster that Leverage Consulting & Associates specialized in, and Eliot had decided long ago that if an opportunity ever came his way to try again, he'd tell Nate everything and the team would finish the job.  Nate wouldn't just shoot him in the head, of course, Nate would take away the only things more important to Abernathy than his life: his power and his money.

It really would have been a perfect job for Nate.

But that was all over, there was no more team, there was no more Nate, everybody was on their own again, and it was stupid to let himself care about it, so he didn't.  Easier to get shit done without Hardison in his ear, anyway.  Good riddance.  Better off taking one-man jobs, like he'd always done before.  And this was a one-man job.  Abernathy’s estate in Texas was a fortress, and he rarely left it, but he didn’t trust that Vermeer in anyone's hands except his own (course it was the damn missing Vermeer, nobody was buying that Diego Rivera cover story, if it was a Rivera he'd have it shipped), making this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get at the man on terrain Eliot knew better than he did.

If it occurred to him that at least one grifter of his acquaintance had a passion for the Old Masters, a mild obsession with tracking down the lost art of the Gardner Museum, and the same network of backchannel contacts he did to apprise her of Abernathy's whereabouts, he didn't let the thought float up into his consciousness.  What's done is done, that was his motto.  Nobody in the world was better than Eliot Spencer at closing and locking the doors of his past.

All the other Sophies that Sophie had been in her lifetime might all dwell inside her still, but all the other Eliots that Eliot had been were dead. Kill 'em and move on.  Can't go home again.  So the Eliot who'd had a team to protect, the Eliot who would run into a burning building to pull Parker and Hardison out of it, that Eliot didn't exist anymore. 

Back to business as usual.

He didn't particularly want to go back to being a killer again, but that was the only work people seemed to want to pay him for.  When people looked at him, that's what they saw.   It had been nice, for awhile, to be somebody different, but no good dwelling on that now.

Eliot's French wasn’t quite good enough to go museum guard - public-facing jobs were always higher in risk - and Abernathy knew his face, which meant chauffeur, hotel staff or private security detail weren’t options either, so he’d settled for manual labor.  The crew hiring extra pairs of hands for the installation of a new air conditioning system didn’t care much about Eliot’s professional credentials, or his clunky Americanized French, as long as he was able-bodied and worked fast.

It was a two-week gig.  Abernathy was scheduled to arrive on day thirteen, under the cover of a museum gala, and the appraisal would happen during the event.  On day fourteen, Eliot would be on a plane back to the horse farm he'd bought in Wyoming.

The one benefit of working alone again, he thought.  At least there'd be no complications.

* * *

Sophie hadn't pulled the Duchess Alexia of Barrington-Highsworth out of storage since the botched theft of the Dagger of Aqu'abi (about which the less said, the better, as the unexpected failure was still a bit raw), but it was an alias that tended to work nicely on rich Americans who didn't know much about art . . . which she doubted Augustus Abernathy did, or his shopping list to the burglars he'd hired would have been far more specific.  (Bypassing two Raphaels and a Botticelli in favor of a silly brass eagle finial?  Skipping altogether the museum's most famous work, Titian's _The Rape of Europa_?  Honestly. Sophie was _embarrassed_ for them.)  The duchess wore sky-high heels and tight-fitting dresses and fawned over powerful men, letting her hand rest on their arm and standing always just a little closer than strictly necessary and laughing at every attempt at a joke, until they started to strut and boast and soon they'd pour out everything she needed to hear. 

Powerful men were so easy it was hardly even work.

She'd gone all out for the museum gala, draped in lush emerald velvet; from the waist down, her dress fell in soft, undulating ripples.  Velvet was excellent for crime, the grifter's life had taught her, as it muffled sound beautifully; one could hardly sneak out a back exit behind security guards in grating, rustling taffeta.  But the top of her dress was far less demure and chaste, waist cinched in so tight her breasts nearly spilled out over the silver trim of the strapless bodice.  She wore a delicate silver filigree choker in the shape of a coiled snake (a nod to Abernathy, who had a bizarre fetish for collecting reptiles) and her dark hair was swept back in a soft knot of curls at the nape of her neck.

(If it occurred to her, at any point while she dressed in her hotel room, that Eliot also liked green and Eliot had also once told her she looked nice with her hair back, she attempted not to dignify such distracting thoughts with her attention.)

The gala began at eight, and Abernathy would be arriving at ten. The milling crowds pouring in and out of every entrance would offer him camouflage; if recognized, he could simply claim he was there to attend the event and make a donation.  No one would suspect him of carrying $200 million in stolen art.  Sophie would make contact, charm him, offer her services as a known specialist in the Old Masters herself, flirt her way into an invitation to view the authentication herself, and then swap out the real painting for the reproduction she currently had neatly rolled up and strapped to her thigh beneath the conveniently heavy swirl of her velvet skirt.  Then she'd excuse herself to the ladies' room, discard the green dress for a shorter, younger, and much more provocative one, and stroll into the lobby as a gum-popping New York tourist carrying a bag of cheap posters from the museum gift shop, who would promptly be shooed out the door by horrified French security guards before any of the gala's elite guests accidentally caught sight of such an undesirable.

That was only Plan B, though.  Plan A involved a duffel bag with a roll of aluminum foil and a man's waitstaff uniform, which she'd stashed in the bushes outside - just in case the man she'd sized it to fit turned up after all.

The duchess sailed into the museum gala without a hitch, made a round of greetings and introductions, to ensure she was seen and identified later, and then began to wind her way through the north galleries towards the quieter, less populated wings adjacent to the curatorial staff's private workrooms and offices.  The entire museum was available for the gala guests' pleasure, so there was nothing unusual in the sight of a woman in a Dior gown strolling idly through rooms of Renoirs and Picassos with a glass of champagne in her hand.  She passed a few clusters of other, equally formal-clad visitors in the main galleries, directly off the central atrium; but by the time she'd navigated herself into the Egyptian antiquities wing, all the noise and bustle had faded, and there was nary a soul in sight.

Until a looming shape appeared out of nowhere, clamped a hand over her mouth, and half-lifted, half-dragged her around a deserted corner toward an empty supply closet.

“The hell you doin’ here?” growled Eliot Spencer under his breath, grabbing her elbow and shoving her inside before closing the door behind them.

“I could ask you the same question,” she retorted.  "And you've stepped on my dress."

“I don't give a damn about your dress. Now scram.  I’m on a job.”

“Well, so am I!”

He leaned back against the wall of the closet, arms folded, and glowered at her. “We agreed to split up," he reminded her coldly.  "That was the deal."

“It’s not like I came here looking for you, Eliot.”

“No, you came here lookin’ for the lost Vermeer.  Even though you knew Augustus Abernathy was the one puttin’ it up for sale, which means you knew I’d be here, tryin’ to take out Abernathy.”

“I had no idea you'd be here," she tossed back loftily.

“Don’t lie to me.  Don't do that. Don't try and con me."

 "For God's sake, Eliot," Sophie sighed wearily, leaning her head back against the wall.  “Is this still about the bloody Davids? How many times -"

“No, it ain’t about the Davids!" Eliot snapped, but it was clear she'd touched a nerve.  "I said I forgave you and I forgave you.  That’s over.”

Sophie opened her eyes suddenly and looked back at him.  "'Take out' Abernathy," she repeated softly.  "Not 'catch' him.  Not 'turn him in.'"

"Don't look at me like that," he muttered gruffly, and she swallowed hard as she stepped back and took him in for the first time.

All black, head to toe.  Muffled boots.  His black knit stocking cap.  Gloves.

And strapped to his muscled thigh, in a black leather holster, the hilt of a wicked-looking military knife.

"Eliot, you can't," she whispered, taking a step towards him, putting a hand on his arm.  He flinched at her touch and shook it off.  "You aren't that man anymore.  Don't do this."

"I don't like leaving things unfinished.  Abernathy's unfinished work."

"There are other ways."

"Don't tell me how to do my job, Soph.  You never did before, don't start now."

"Eliot," she said again, but he cut her off with a shake of the head before she could speak another word.

"It was a walk-away, Sophie, that was the deal.  We all knew it. Off the grid. Stay outta each other’s way."

"But -"

"I ain't your partner anymore," he cut her off, harshly, voice raw with something he was trying to disguise as anger but wasn't.  "Ain't no way for both of us to get what we want here tonight, which means either you gotta leave, or I gotta leave. ‘Cept it has to be you ‘cause if it’s me, Augustus Abernathy’s gonna catch you with that reproduction Vermeer you think I don't know you got hidin' under your dress, and your pretty ass is landing in jail.  Which means it’s gotta be you.”

"I'm staying," she insisted.  "That Vermeer is leaving with me."

"Keepin' it," he asked pointedly, "or givin' it back?"  She hesitated a little before answering, resentful of the knowing smile tugging at the corner of his lips.  "Let me guess," he went on.  " _Wantin'_ to give it back but not quite sure in the end you're gonna be able to go through with givin' two hundred million away, just like that.  Bein' the good guy gets under your skin, don't it?"

"It doesn't seem to have got too far under yours," she fired back, "since you're wandering around the halls of a museum with a knife in your pants, plotting to murder an arms dealer."

"Abernathy's killed people just for lookin' at him wrong," said Eliot, unfazed.  "You got no shot."

"Maybe not on my own,” she said, a faint hint of wheedling in her voice, “but if we team up –"

“Sophie –"

“ . . . and run the Mississippi Hat Trick –"

“Mississippi Hat Trick takes a third –"

“Not the way I play it."

“And I ain’t putting on a priest costume again.  Not after the last time.”

“When did you become so unreasonable?”

“I’m gonna open this door,” he said firmly, “and on the count of three, you’re gonna scram.  Head on back to your fancy party, have a crab cake, go home."

“I’ll do no such thing,” she snapped indignantly, “why should you get to have all the fun just because you got here first?”

“Because _I got here first!”_

She waved this away dismissively.  “Details.”

“Sophie, I ain’t gonna tell you again.  If you don’t walk out that door I’m gonna push you out it.”

“Well, of all the bloody impertinence,” she retorted.  “I’d like to see _you_ try to swipe a Vermeer on your own with nothing but cleavage to assist you.”

“Well, that ain’t gonna happen," said Eliot, jaw twitching just slightly with the effort it took not to look down at the plunging bodice Sophie had so cruelly just drawn his attention to. 

"You're talking to me like I've never done this before," she said crisply.  "This rather happens to be my area of expertise.  I'm not afraid of Augustus Abernathy.  He's a mark like any other.  I know exactly what to do."

"Abernathy ain't some posh London art snob with a few quaint underworld buddies," said Eliot, "he's a goddamned war criminal.  He oughta be at the Hague.  But he's got the government in his pocket so no one can get near him.  'Cept me.  And I'm gonna.  It's cute that you think stealing one painting will make a dent, but he's worth billions.  The Vermeer is nothin'.  He'll just move on and fence the next thing in his stack.  Man like that, he needs to be taken out so he can't hurt any more people, and your way ain't gonna cut it."

“Just because I don’t solve every problem by punching it until it falls down . . ."

“Don’t take this out on me, Sophie, I ain’t the one you’re mad at," he said, and all the air went out of the room.

She didn’t bother pretending like she didn’t understand what he meant.  “I’m not mad at Nate,” she tossed back, a little too casually. “Why would I be mad at Nate?”

“Cause he didn’t get on the plane.”

Sophie froze, her pause just a fraction of a second too long, voice just the faintest bit too stiff.  Anyone who wasn’t Eliot Spencer would have been fooled, but a crook can’t con another crook. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied tartly, trying to ignore the stern set of his jaw as he glowered at her, arms folded.

“Like hell you don’t,” he retorted.  “Guy like Nate Ford gets out of the game, everyone notices.  Gets back in the game? They notice that too. You hear things same way I do, Sophie.  If I managed to find out all the way out in Nowheresville, Wyoming, that Nate stayed put to try and go straight, you sure as hell heard about it in Tokyo.”  Sophie was silent. "Yeah," he said, answering her unspoken question.  "Course I knew where you were."

Sophie had no idea how to respond to this.

“He ain’t like us,” Eliot went on, gruff voice softening a fraction. This was his idea of comfort, apparently. “He never was.  He’s an honest man. Turned out to be one hell of a thief, but that was never gonna stick. We all knew it. He’s back on the straight side, he’s tryin’ to make it work with Maggie, hell, maybe he’ll even quit drinking.  Good for him. That’s who he is, Sophie. Leopard don’t change his spots just ‘cause he gets a taste of playing Robin Hood for awhile.”

“Are you talking about Nate or about you?” she countered, throwing him slightly off-balance.

“Don’t do that.  Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Try to get inside my head.  You know I hate it when you do that.”

“You may not like it, Eliot, but all of us have changed.  Even Nate, much as he might hate to admit it. But not only Nate.”

“Yeah?” he raised an eyebrow.  “’Cause you sure seem like the same old Sophie Devereaux you always were.”

That stung, and he could see his words land with sharp edges, though she barely showed it.  But Eliot wasn’t a mark, so she was extending the courtesy grifters afforded to only the very few by not bothering to conceal everything she was feeling.  (Only _most_ of it.)

“I happen to resent that.”

“The old Sophie Devereaux never told anybody the truth,” he said.  “You’re all tied up in knots about Nate not gettin’ on that plane and comin’ after you like you thought he was supposed to, but you can’t just _say_ that to him, like a normal person.  ‘Cause that’s showin’ too much. That’s givin’ him power over you.”  He stepped in closer to her, and had the satisfaction of seeing her plant her feet and tilt her chin up defiantly.  He’d always liked that about Sophie, that even at his worst she had never once found him frightening. “Lemme ask you a question,” he said, voice lower.  “Why’d it have to be me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Was it just ‘cause I was the easiest to find?  Parker’s Parker, of course she disappeared, and ain’t nobody good enough to track Hardison but Hardison.  But then you heard about the Vermeer and you knew I’d be tracking Abernathy if he ever left that damn fortress he calls a house.  And you flew all the way out here to steal the painting out from under me, just to get my attention.  So I’m gonna ask you again,” he repeated, voice lower still. “Why’d it have to be me?”

“Eliot –"

“If all you wanted was to show one of us you’re doin’ just fine without Nate Ford hopin’ that word would get back to him and you’d make him jealous –"

She shook her head.  “I didn’t.” He looked skeptical.  “Eliot, I _didn’t,”_ she said again, voice defensive.

“Then what?  I ain’t one-a your girlfriends, Sophie, I ain’t gonna take you out for cosmos and tell you to get over him ‘cause there’s other fish in the sea.”

The corners of her mouth twitched faintly at this.  “Trust me,” she said crisply, “if that’s what I wanted, I wouldn't have picked you.”

She realized what she’d said as she watched his face change, eyes sharp and keen on hers.  “So you _did_ come lookin’ for me,” he said, and at this point there was no use further denying it, so she didn’t bother.  “Couldn’t find the others, huh?”

"I wasn't looking for the others."

“And why’s that?”

"You tell me," she fired back, a little defensively.  "You knew I was in Tokyo.  Did _you_ try to find Parker and Hardison?"

"No," he said softly, something almost sad in his voice, and a little naked, like he was confessing something to her.

She took a step back, then, pressed up against the wall, her gaze on his drawing him with her, and Eliot realized with a start how close they were, how far he’d already lost himself.  Her glossy red lips were inches from his.

“Chanel No. 5,” he said softly, before he could stop himself, and she smiled.

“You remember my perfume?”

“It’s a very distinctive smell.  And you still haven’t answered my question.”

“I missed you,” she said, the words tumbling out almost unbidden, and from the flash of irritation passing through her dark eyes as she heard the words out loud - like she was angry at herself for revealing more than she'd meant to - it seemed very possible to Eliot that she meant it.

“I miss it too,” he admitted, “it was kinda nice bein’ on the other side of the line for a little while.  Helpin’ people. Makin’ their lives better ‘stead of worse. But we all knew it couldn’t last.”

“I didn’t mean I missed the team,” she corrected him gently.  “I do miss the team. Of course I do. And I miss helping people.  I miss all of it. But that isn’t what I said.”

“Sophie,” he said, a warning in his voice as she did something she’d never done before and reached up her hand to touch his face.  Against his will, he closed his eyes, letting her gentle fingers cup his jaw, brush lightly over his temple.

She felt a warm feeling sweep over her, a flood of giddy desire taking her entirely by surprise, leaving her reckless, heart pounding, wondering what would happen if he had been as good at reading people as she was, if he had had the ability to look into her mind and see what she was thinking.

She could see exactly what he was thinking.  It was in the tight clench of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders, the faintest perceptible shift from softness to hardness between his thighs where his body touched hers through layers of velvet.

Sophie Devereaux could read anybody, and right now she was watching Eliot Spencer realize for the very first time just how badly he wanted to take her to bed.

“I never knew what it was like to feel _safe_ before,” she murmured, letting her fingers stroke his skin.  “Never, in all my life. You gave me that.”

“You ain’t never needed anybody to keep you safe,” he said softly, eyes still closed.  “You always did just fine on your own.”

“Not anymore,” she replied.  “I’m out of practice. I got used to you.”  Her other hand joined the first one, then, and neither of them could deny anymore that she was pulling his head down to meet hers, and he was letting her.

“This is a really damn bad idea,” he murmured, and she gave a low, breathy laugh.

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“I ain’t him, Sophie,” he said, a little more harshly than he’d meant, and she paused for a moment, but didn’t pull away.

“I know where to find Nate,” she said mildly, almost reproaching him.  “He's exactly where we left him.  If I had wanted to do this with Nate, I wouldn’t be standing here now.”

“Do what with Nate? Which part?”

“Either.”

“So are you here ‘cause you wanna steal a painting with me, or are you here ‘cause you wanna do the other thing, because I’m gettin’ real confused, and a little bit pissed off.”

“Well,” she said reasonably, “the guards have their shift change in eleven minutes -”

“Goddammit! I’m behind schedule now.  You messed me all up.”

“Not if we run the -"

“I said no.”

“Well, fine, then, not the hat trick, if you’re going to be difficult about it, we can run any con you like.  Look how agreeable I’m being. Seize this opportunity while you have it.”

“All right,” Eliot muttered through gritted teeth.  “Say I agree. Say we steal the Vermeer together.” Sophie beamed at him with open delight, causing him to narrow his eyes and shoot her a dark glare.  “Just this once,” he insisted, “I ain’t your partner. One gig. That’s it. Since you’re already here and it seems like I can’t get rid a’ you. Then what?  What happens next?”

"Frame Abernathy for the theft, obviously," she replied cheerfully.  "So the authorities trace it back to him and find all the other stolen pieces."

"I didn't mean what happens next for Abernathy," Eliot corrected her, serious and still a little annoyed.  "I meant what happens next for you and me."

“Then,” Sophie told him in her most alluring voice, “I imagine we might think of some way to make use of the fact that I happen to have obtained the hotel room adjoining yours.”

“Oh, really.”

“Yes.”

“Just happened to.”

She waved it off.  “The merest coincidence.”

“Uh-huh.”  

“Of course, if you’re not interested,” she began, “I do still have a small chateau outside the city, and I’m happy to stay there instead if you prefer not to -"

When he backed her up against the wall, she suspected it was at least fifty percent a tactic to shut her up, but she didn’t mind that as much as she might have under different circumstances, since it was so staggeringly apparent that he was about to kiss her - and time permitting, possibly even more.  His lips hovered a fraction of an inch from hers, his chest heaving, breath coming rough and ragged, hands pinning her waist to the cool metal wall.  His strong, warm body pressed hard against hers and she could feel even more keenly than before the telltale signs of his want.

This was the only moment better than orgasm, to a grifter.  The moment you know you have them.

_She had him._

"Eliot," she said softly, warmth swirling through her body, pitching her voice low and alluring to mask the impatience she was feeling.  _For the love of God, you idiot, just kiss me already._

But he didn't. 

He stood there for what felt like an eternity, but turned out to have been less than ten seconds.  He was so close she could taste his breath.  He never drank before a job, but he'd had coffee, and something with cinnamon in it.  There was something so endearing in that - Eliot stopping off at a patisserie for sweets on his way to an assassination - that she felt dangerously, irresponsibly fond of him.

"Eliot," she said his name again, and then they both froze.

Voices.

Right outside the door.

One of them loud, and brash, and hearty, infused with the telltale rhythms of a Texas accent.

They were out of time.

"Waiter's uniform," she whispered, all business again.  "Duffel in the bushes outside.  You'll know what to do with the foil.  The appraisers are on the third floor.  I'll drop it to you out the window.  Catering vans are by the south exit.  You can walk it right out on one of the carts."

"Then you stay to close down the party," he added, "so you're seen on camera leaving after Abernathy does."

"And we leave the fake Vermeer with Abernathy to sell to his buyer, which, depending on who he's in business with, might take care of your untidy business for you," she added.  "For two hundred million, he'll be in a lot of trouble."

"And then we take the painting back to Boston," Eliot said firmly, his tone brooking no argument.  "That's the deal.  If I help you, I'm helpin' you give it back.  I ain't helpin' you if you flew all this way to keep it for yourself."

"Cross my heart," said Sophie.  "I just want to steal it.  I don't need to keep it."

Eliot looked at her, eyebrow raised, something like a smile tugging at his mouth for the first time since he'd found her.  "You know, in your own way, you're crazy as Parker," he said wryly. 

"Thank you."

"You gonna say it," he added with amusement, "or should I?"

"I'll do it," said Sophie, looking up at him with a sparkle in her eyes.  "Let's go steal a Vermeer."


End file.
